Grudging superlatives littered the articles. Bold. Daring. Ingenious. Brilliant. And my favorite: audacious. Each was like a sip of strong wine. So were the quotes from law enforcement officials and Amthor executives and employees. 'Pursuing several strong leads to Wise's whereabouts.' 'Won't rest until he's apprehended.' 'Prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.' One, by Jim Sanderson, made me laugh out loud: 'I worked with Jordan for nearly ten years. He was such a quiet, unassuming guy. I still can't believe he had the nerve to do something like this.'
News stories the next two days, mainly rehashes, ran on inside pages. Then Jordan Wise was back on the front page again, down toward the bottom with a smaller headline: 'Embezzler's Car Found.' FBI officials, the account said, were working to trace Wise's activities after his car was found abandoned at San Diego International Airport. Speculation as to his present whereabouts ran along the false trail I'd laid: he had either taken a flight under an assumed name or used some other means of transportation to leave the area, with Mexico his most likely destination.
That was the last of the front-page stories. Inside pages off and on again for a time—'No New Leads in Wise Case'—and then, less than two weeks after the story broke, nothing at all. The FBI doesn't advertise its frustrations; neither do other law enforcement agencies. And there are too many new crimes, too many world crises and natural disasters, too much political chicanery for one man's white-collar crime, even one that has netted him $600,000, to feed the public's hunger for sensationalism for long.
We were home free.
During the first week I stayed put inside the apartment, reading, listening to music, while Annalise ran all the errands. A precaution, mainly. The local papers had also run the driver's license photo, on inside pages, and though there was no reason for anyone in Chicago to think Jordan Wise might be in their midst, it was safer not to be seen in public just yet. The other reason I stayed in was that I was growing a mustache to match the shape and thickness of the theatrical one. After seven days it had filled out enough to look right when colored with the dark- brown hair dye.
My first day out I went to the Mutual Trust branch and arranged for the transfer of $17,000 from the Caymans account to our joint checking account. After that I began going out with Annalise at night, twice that second week, to dinner in dimly lighted restaurants and then to a neighborhood movie theater. If anyone paid attention to us, it was only admiring male looks aimed at her. Alongside Annalise, I was virtually invisible.
Living with her in the close confines of the apartment was a spartan dry run for our life together on St. Thomas. We hadn't spent more than three consecutive days together at any point during the previous year, and those weekend getaways had been all fun and games. It took us a while to get used to being with each other on a daily basis.
Everyone has habits that amuse or irritate others, little idiosyncrasies that don't crop up in casual circumstances. I'd known that she was something of a neatness freak, but not that she was compulsive about it. She was constantly straightening, arranging, picking up, and she chastised me every time I left a glass or dish unwashed or an article of clothing lying around. She drank a little too much, Scotch as well as wine; kept prodding me to get high with her, turned pouty when I didn't and playful to the point of silliness when I did. She was easily bored, used sex to ward off boredom and restlessness, had a tendency to become sullen when she didn't get her way. On the plus side, she was easy to talk to, knowledgeable about more subjects than I'd imagined and filled with an endearing, almost childlike enthusiasm whenever she talked about the Caribbean or showed off one of her new dress designs. At times, in spite of myself, I felt toward her as I'd felt toward Jim Sanderson and the other Amthor employees—as if she were a mortal and I was a higher power, benign and tolerant in my love for her, but superior nonetheless.
The longer I stayed cooped up in that confined space and that downscale neighborhood, the more sympathy I had for Annalise. Three weeks was bad enough; three months must have been torturous. Cabin fever breeds friction, and when we began to get on each other's nerves, snap at each other for no good reason, I got us out of there. It was almost the end of October. There was no need to delay rejoining society on a regular basis.
Over the next three weeks we took day trips in and around Chicago—to museums, the Adler Planetarium, Jackson Park, Monroe Harbor, the wealthy suburbs of Lake Forest and Evanston. We made overnight trips to Milwalikee and the sand dunes region along Lake Michigan. We went to movies, plays, the Chicago Symphony at Orchestra Hall. We shopped at Marshall Field's and a couple of the exclusive women's shops on Michigan Avenue, so Annalise could buy outfits appropriate for the tropics. On November 15, we saw a travel agent and booked her flight to St. Thomas and hotel accommodations in Charlotte Amalie, and my flight to join her a month later. We were two people among millions, faceless, unnoticed, safe and secure enough, yet buoyed by the ever-present danger of recognition. It was that note of danger, as much as escape from the apartment, that put us back on the same close-knit plane as before. The friction disappeared. So did my feeling of superiority.
As the day of her leaving approached, she was like a kid in her excitement. She talked nonstop, making plans, discussing the kind of home we should have and where it should be located and what amenities it should have. I wanted her to pick it out, make all the preliminary arrangements—that was part of the reason for her moving to St. Thomas a month ahead of me. I kept telling her I'd be happy anywhere she was happy, and I meant it. Living space and all its trappings mattered more to her than they did to me.
Two days before her flight, we took the Mercury to a South Side dealership and sold it for $800 cash. Another $1,500 to cover her immediate expenses in St. Thomas came out of our joint safe deposit box. Our last night together we made love three times, and in the morning I rode the taxi with her to O'Hare to see her off.
She called the following night at a prearranged time, full of news and glowing praise. She'd opened a bank account, her first order of business, and she already had an appointment with a real estate agent to look at houses for lease. She loved the island, the weather, everything about the Caribbean. 'You were right, Richard,' she said. 'We're going to be so happy here.'
The next morning I went to the Mutual Trust branch and had $15,000 wired to our new account in Charlotte Amalie. Then I called a small brokerage house I'd picked out and made an appointment with an investment counselor. The broker turned out to be discreet as well as knowledgable, the more so when I told him how much money I intended to invest. We spent two hours discussing various possibilities and the current state of the stock market, and he gave me a stack of literature and performance charts to comb through.
Annalise called again that night. 'I found the perfect house for us,' she said. 'Absolutely perfect!'
'Tell me about it.'
'It's on the hillside above town, the oldest and most exclusive residential district on the island. A seventy- five-year-old villa just dripping with charm. Tile floors, beam ceilings, everything you could want, including a small garden and a cobblestoned terrace with a fabulous view of the harbor. Cobblestones! Can you believe that? Of course it's small, only two bedrooms, and the garden has been neglected, but we could put up with that.'
'Sure we could.'
'It's only been available since the end of last month and the agent says it won't last long. And it's vacant, I could move in right away.' She paused before she said, 'But there's one drawback.'
'Let me guess. It's expensive.'
'Yes. Because of the view and the location.'
'How expensive?'
'Twenty-five hundred a month on a two-year fixed lease. Can we afford that much?'
'I don't see why not.'
'Richard! Do you mean it? Are you sure?'
I said, 'I'll never deny you anything you really want, you know that.'
She said, 'God, I love you!'
The apartment was lonely as hell without her. I got out as often as I could, shopped, went to movies, wandered through parks, took bus rides to various parts of the city. In the evenings I made a careful study of the literature and charts the investment counselor had given me, and an informed decision as to which mutual funds and blue-chip stocks best suited Annalise's and my long-term needs. Then I arranged another meeting with the broker and opened an account for the purchase of the selected funds and stocks with a wire transfer of $150,000 from Richard Laidlaw's Cayman account. I told him that I would be moving shortly to the Virgin Islands and requested that all dividend checks be sent to the Cayman account, all business correspondence to me at my new address in Charlotte Amalie.
The portfolio was fairly conservative, with as much guarantee as it was possible to have of substantial
